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Preparation for the GRE involves studying for Verbal (V), Quantitative (Q), and Analytical (A). Out of these three sections, V requires a lot of efforts since it involves studying 50 wordlists from the Barron's Guide (BG). The preparation that I am writing about is ideal for those who are appearing for the GRE in the month of September.
It is preferable to read "Word Power Made Easy" by Norman Lewis although it is not a prerequisite for the GRE. On reading the Word Power, it has been noticed that retention of various new and difficult words becomes a lot easy since the book does not insist on learning the words by rote, instead, it gives the background of the word in terms of history of the word, its origin and possible annotations. This helps in easy retention. It is advisable to start reading the book one year prior to appearing for the GRE. In January, you should make the BG your Gita or Koran or Bible so that you are bound to it for sufficient number of hours in a day. You should start studying the wordlists from January. It is advisable to have the latest edition of the BG. Take the BG with you wherever you can, to college, to your tuition classes, etc. Photocopy the wordlists if you think the book is too heavy to carry. Ideally, by January end you should finish 10 wordlists. The secret of remembering the words does not lie in learning them, instead, one should develop the knack of revising the already learnt words since it has been seen that one tends to forget the words if they are not revised frequently.
By February end, you must finish another 20 wordlists, that means you must finish a total of 30 wordlists. As the wordlists increase, so should your frequency of revising the wordlists. How you remember the words is entirely up to you since you have remembered a lot of things until this age. But a good way of remembering words is by associating either the spelling or the sound of the word with something more familiar to you. For example, the word recalcitrant which means stubborn. It was really difficult for me to remember the word recalcitrant, so I thought of my calculator, which we normally call "calci". now my calculator never started functioning when I pressed the ON button. I had to bang it in order to start it, it was so stubborn!!!. Hence whenever the word recalcitrant was heard I easily remembered calci and hence stubborn.
It may sound a bit weird to remember words in this way, but let me tell you, let your way of remembering the word be the weirdest or the most sensible, you have succeeded in remembering the word if you know its meaning in 10 seconds flat. And if you think that methods like these help you in your wordlists, never falter to adopt them.
Now that you have finished 30 wordlists, you must give enough time to revise the words before you start with the remaining 20 wordlists. So devote about 10 days of march to revising 30 wordlists (which means revising 3 wordlists in a day). this should not be difficult. Revise one wordlist before lunch, one before evening tea & snacks and one before dinner. The secret lies in spacing out the wordlists. You will fail if you try to revise all 3 wordlists at a stretch, of course, there are exceptions, but it is better to space the wordlists since your mind is not clogged with a lot of words at a time. After 10 days, start with the remaining 20 wordlists and finish them by March end. Again I want to emphasize that this will require you to do one wordlist a day and I am sure that you will have become so habitual by now to learn new words so fast enough that learning 20 wordlists along with revising these new wordlists in 20 days will not be a pain in the neck.
The main reason to finish with the wordlists by march end is that one also needs time for preparation for the coming academic exams which are equally important, unless you are fully confident of securing 2300+ on the GRE and applying only to GRE-strong Universities.
What you have to also do along with learning the wordlists is that you have to equip yourself with the various software (In The GRE, Kaplan, Powerprep {an absolute must} etc, etc, etc) and other accessories like the Big Book, etc. before your final exams get started. The reason for you to get yourself all these things now is that you will have hardly any time to collect all these things once your final exams are over. Top.
Much of April, May and June will be devoted to the term work, preparatory leave and exams. As soon as the exams get over, you have to actually race against time to finish up with everything before appearing for the GRE in September. It is necessary that you immediately start with the A and Q sections of the BG and the Big Book (BB). Along with this, you will also have to revise the wordlists once again before you can venture out into the sentence completion (SC), antonyms (AN) and analogies (AG). It is also very important to get the habit of reading extremely boring passages for scoring well in the reading comprehension (RC).
So, how do you go about doing all these things? Remember one thing, if you will start well, you will end well. In about 20 days you must finish revising the wordlists. But this does not mean that you will not touch the wordlists once again. You will have to continuously keep revising the wordlists up to one week before your actual date of the exam. The revising of the wordlists after the exam is for you to start with the SC, AN, AG. I will not be going into the details as to how you should practice for these sub-sections because they are explained extremely well in the BG and also in the software like In The GRE and Kaplan.
You must also know that the material provided in the BB and the s/w for Q is very obsolete and nowadays a lot of new stuff is being asked, hence you must strive to have 12 Std notes of Probability and Conics and Sem 5 notes of statistics. It might happen that someone is asked very easy questions on these topics whereas some may be asked extremely tough questions. Hence you should be prepared for everything.
You should also have Prof. Pai's material on the V, Q, A. Believe me he has questions ranging from the easiest to the toughest. It will prove to be extremely advantageous if you solve his Q and A sections sincerely. I will not advice you to solve his V section except for RC (that too, if you have the time).
1. One month prior to your date, you must have finished doing the following things.
2. All exercises of all sections of the BG.
3. All tests of the BG. All tests (if possible) of the BB.
4. Revision of conics, probability, statistics and other concepts that are being currently asked on the GRE. (Get feedback from those who appear in the month of August for extra topics)
5. Challenging exercises of Prof. Pai's Q and A sections.
6. It is also very important that you maintain a logbook recording your scores and marks in every test or exercise that you take. Please understand that there is no point in doing a lot of things when there is no improvement in the performance. Quality is much better than quantity. Your gradual improvement in the exercises and tests will only drive your confidence for the GRE.Top
The last one-month has to be kept for the computer-based tests (CBT). In the first 20 days of the one-month, you should finish all the CBTs of all types (that is both sectional and full-length) of all software (In the GRE, Kaplan, etc, etc, etc. except for POWERPREP). How do you space out these tests depends on the number of tests available to you and your own speed. Also keep a record of your performance in these tests, so that you can continuously improve during these 20 days.
You must have at least 4-5 full-length tests of the POWERPREP. Try to get POWERPREP 99, 2000 and 2001. The latest version you have, the better it is for you.
Powerprep will give you the feel of the actual GRE because Powerprep is the s/w that the ETS (Educational Testing Service) prepares and this body also prepares the actual GRE tests. Take one test every day. Also try to take the sectional exercises that come along with the tests, they are also beneficial. Your scores on the tests you take on the Powerprep will give you a fair idea as to how you will fare on the GRE, so take these tests extremely carefully.
See to it that you keep at least one test for the last day so that you don't lose practice suddenly. Don't try to even look at the wordlist on the last day, this also means that you don't think of any words in your mind, it will have a negative effect on you. Finally, wish yourself all the best and shoot yourself for taking the GRE.Top
1. You will come across a lot of new words while you will appear for the tests and exercises in the BG, BB, and other s/w. see to it that you make a list of all these new words (word - type of word {verb, noun or adjective} - meaning of the word). These words may come on the GRE, otherwise, the writers of BG, BB and s/w are not foolish enough to mention new words and play havoc on your mind.
2. I have tried to be as elaborate as possible. Wherever I have not specified details, it is because the reader will get the details from the respective material as and when the reader has a look at it, meaning, I have not mentioned how to practice sub-sections of V. It's because the BG has done this part of explaining very well.
3. It is very important to time your tests. There is no point in appearing for the tests if you are not timing them, rather you are cheating your own self.
4. In case if you still feel that you need more information, feel free to write to me at gaurvpb {AT} yahoo {DOT} com with the word "GRE & ADMIT" in the subject and body of the email.
5. This entire matter is to be taken as a suggestion only and not as the only means for preparing for the GRE. Top
Sunday, March 10, 2002 17:17